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Indigenous groups say they want to meet with the new Murray-Darling Basin chair and Federal Government to bring about water justice for Aboriginal people.

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Darren Perry representing 46 Sovereign First Nations calls for a new water partnership on the Murray-Darling Basin.(Caroline Winter)Download 1.9 MB

First Nations, an alliance of 46 indigenous groups across the river system, want to ensure key reforms on Aboriginal ownership and management of water entitlements are fulfilled.

The alliance delivered a letter in Canberra today to Bob Baldwin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Environment Minister and Neil Andrew, Murray-Darling Basin Authority chair, to ask for a meeting.

Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations chair Darren Perry said they want water justice for Indigenous people along the Murray-Darling Basin system.

"We're asking to start the conversation again with the new regime in Mr Baldwin and Mr Andrew to sit down with us and have a conversation about how we're going to achieve the things that have been promised to us within the Commonwealth Water Act review," he said.

"Some of the recommendations came back that indigenous engagement needs to be a strong front within the act and basin plan.

Mr Perry said Aboriginal groups felt that they had been left out a bit in talks.

"The voice of the irrigators is being heard very strongly at the moment and we don't want to see that we're in competition with the irrigators or the environment but we're central to water on this land," he said.

"We're sovereign first nations and we've been manager of water resources within our traditional country for many thousands of generations so it goes without saying we should be partners not stakeholders in water management in this country."